Combes v. Getz’s Empirical Analysis
285 U.S. 434 · 1932
Citation profile
102 federal appellate · 15 district · 123 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 348 later decisions (31 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2025 · most notably Great Northern Ry Co v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co (1932), Veix v. Sixth Ward Building & Loan Ass'n (1940)
102 federal appellate · 15 district · 123 state decisions — followed in 26 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Huntington v. Attrill · Hammond Packing Company v. State of Arkansas · Pritchard Ex'X v. Norton · Bernheimer v. Converse · Farmers & Merchants Bank of Monroe v. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 348 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“neither vested property rights nor the obligation of contracts of third persons may be destroyed or impaired.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a contractual obligation arose; and the right to enforce it, having become vested, comes within the protection of both the contract impairment clause in Art. 1, § 10, and the due process of law clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, of the Federal Constitution.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The section of the Constitution whereby contracts are secured against impairment is aimed at true agreements, and not at quasi contracts as distinguished from agreements implied in fact. * * * Either the petitioner took his cause of action subject to such infirmities or contingencies as were attached to it by the law of the slate of its creation, or he did not take anything.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.